Raven (Fred x oc)

45. The Ring

With school back in session, the available time I had was easily decreased. Not only were teachers beginning to push the idea of these being N.E.W.T. classes and the constant reminder of exams. It wasn't until late one night that something worthwhile happened. 

The soft snores of the other girls in my dorm reached my ears softly as I sat by the window, staring out at the stars. Beside me sat the red box Dad had given me. I was carefully looking through it all, smiling slightly whenever I came across pictures. When I was about to place everything back inside,  the starlight moved to cover the bottom of the box. Instantly, the white interior was flooded with the cool, bright light of the stars and the box itself began to shift. 

The red exterior began to contort and change to a light purple color and the bottom of the box suddenly sunk in. From shock, I moved, blocking the starlight. It stayed exactly the way it had been. Brows furrowed, I sat back again, allowing the light to consume it again. Carefully, I picked up the box and held it closer to the light. 

The bottom of the box continued to sink in and from the material emerged a ring. It was silver with a large, pale purple stone, the exact same shade as the box. Glancing around to make sure no one was awake, I hesitantly reached forward for the ring. 

As I did so, my hand almost began to move of its own accord, somewhat like a magnet. Even if I had wanted to, by the time I was almost touching the ring I could not have stopped it if I wanted to. The cool metal chilled my skin for a moment before the ring was suddenly the same temperature as my hand. 

I picked it up. Holding it up to the light, I saw that the ring had markings ingrained in the silver. Runes, by the look of them. After scarcely a moment's thought, I grabbed a chain from my desk and slipped the ring onto it. Clasping the chain around my neck, I placed everything back in the box and hid it again under my bed. 

I stared up at the canopy of my bed, waiting to feel sleepy, but I held the ring in my hand and as soon as I did, sleep began to wash over me and I was asleep in moments. 

Purple mist crawled across the starlit field I found myself in. Looking around, I saw that I was in an isolated cylinder, free from the now fog. Stars blanketed the sky above, the moon nowhere to be found. As I turned, I suddenly saw that I was no longer alone. 

From the fog emerged the horrific head of a very large snake. Its head rose at least twenty feet in the air as coil after coil came into the cylinder. My heart pounded in my chest as I began searching for my wand, but to my surprise, I wasn't wearing my robes and my wand was nowhere to be found. 

Instead, I was wearing black jeans, a deep purple tank top, a white cloak, and the chain with the ring. "Prove yourself," a voice ordered. 

"What?" I called, unsure of what he meant. 

"Prove yourself!" 

"How?" I asked. 

"Kill it!" 

"What?" I retorted. "Why? What has it ever done to me that I should kill it? And I can't! I don't have anything to kill it with!" 

"Children," the voice muttered in annoyance. "So naive and unprepared." 

There was a large snapping sound and the snake shrunk down as if only the skin remained. From the folds arose the figure of a man. He was at least eight feet tall, but the features of his face were somehow blurred, making it impossible for me to make anything out. 

After a moment of us simply looking at one another, he let out a battle cry and charged towards me. In shock, I jumped to the side, out of the way. But before long, he began to change course for me and I cried out, "Stop! Stay away!" 

Then, a most miraculous thing happened. When he tried to come towards me, he was suddenly slowed. But even this wasn't enough to keep him from me. Soon he charged through it and lunged at me. I fell to the ground and suddenly felt my head sinking into the ground as he beat the living daylights out of me. 

With a harsh gasp, I jolted awake, breathing heavily. The room was completely empty. When I tried to stand, I collapsed to the ground with a cry of pain. Shaking, I looked up at my full-length mirror and gasped in shock. My face, neck, and chest were covered in bruises as well as my knuckles which I'd used to try and defend myself. 

In shock, I stared at them before looking back at the mirror. Through the bruises and black eyes, my eyes suddenly flashed purple. Shaking, I looked away. After a moment, I looked back into the mirror. My eyes had gone back to normal. Brows furrowed, I got up shakily and found my wand. 

After muttering a few spells, I was able to get the bruises to look at least several weeks old. The rest I covered with concealer. 

Over the next several months, the dreams didn't stop. In fact, they got worse and more and more violent. I started waking up with more and more injuries, but it didn't even cross my mind to tell anyone. Who would believe such a story? 

After three months of this, I finally had enough and decided to tell Dad. So I packed a package of food and flew off to his cave. Once inside, I found that Harry, Ron, and Hermione were in there as well. 

"Raven," Dad said, smiling at me as I landed on his shoulder after having dumped the food by another that the other three seemed to have brought. When I didn't move to change forms, he frowned. "Valerie, what's wrong?" 

Letting out a small twitter, I landed on the ground and changed forms. I hadn't hidden the bruises to ensure that he'd believe me. "Val, what on earth happened?" Harry asked, eyeing the bruises and scars. 

"Dad, I need to talk to you, alone," I said. Brows furrowed, he nodded and we moved over to the far end of the cave, out of earshot of the others. "Dad, I've been having these dreams for three months now. In each dream, I get attacked by these...creatures. Never the same one. They beat me up in the dream and I wake up with these bruises. I don't know what's happening." 

"I do," he said. His eyes were fixed on the ring I wore on my neck. "Let me talk to these three a minute and when they're gone, I can try and explain."